Pat Rice accompanied Gerry Adams on his one day whirlwind trip to the Basque Country on Monday.

Steep green hills and deep valleys rush up towards us as Gerry Adams drops in for one hectic day in the Basque Country. He is rushed to the airport entrance for a reception which would be the envy of any head of state.

A huge colourful crowd, as many Irish Tricolours as Basque Ikurrinas, hundreds of lights flashing and cameras clicking, a bouquet for the Sinn Fein President and an ``aurresku'', a dance of welcome from two young Basques in traditional dress. Then off to a press conference, with the local Basque police in their red jackets and berets keeping the roads open.

One hundred journalists are accredited for the noon conference. Richard McAuley looks pleased and worried by turns as Herri Batasuna security opens a way through the crowds. The main press conference with Adams and Otegi and Barrena (HB) is followed by a more in-depth interview with a small number of Basque, Catalan and international media, including Reuters and German TV.

More TV (BBC2) then lunch with the two main parties of the new nationalist consensus - HB and the PNV - and a private meeting with the head of the latter, Javier Arzallus.

A very busy evening brings Adams to meet representatives of all the parties to the Ireland Forum that produced the Lizarra Garazi agreement of nationalist consensus on the right to Basque national self-determination, which in turn produced the ETA ceasefire.

There is also a jail visit to HB national executive member Karmelo Landa who was jailed for seven years, along with all the members of the party's national executive for showing a clip from an ETA peace-plan video as part of their election campaign. There are crowds outside the jail to meet Adams, even bigger than at the airport. The cry is ``independencia!''. A final public meeting in a packed theatre, then airborne, Bilbao's rivers of light receding, those of Belfast a distant invitation - four hours away.

Two views of the same visit

Teresa Toda looks at how the Spanish and Basque media covered Gerry Adams's visit

In the Basque Country, Monday's TV and radio news and Tuesday's newspapers reflected two different views of Gerry Adams's visit to Bilbao, two views that coincide with the main positions in the new situation created by the Lizarra-Garazi Declaration and ETA's ceasefire.

Thus, the Basque nationalist media gave detailed coverage of the visit, viewing Adams's message positively emphasising the importance of the event. It was the lead story for all of them, complete with pictures.

The two largest-selling dailies in the Basque Country, which belong to a very powerful conservative media group, summed up the story in a few lines on their front pages, without pictures. Inside coverage was quite fair, but not enthusiastic. Nevertheless, these papers are ``Basque'' because they are edited and distributed in the Basque Country and so their view, in spite of their closeness to the Conservative government's position, is different from that of the Spanish newspapers.

El Pais focused on details such as flags or particular words, rather than on the meaning of both visitors' and hosts' speeches. The very conservative ABC gave the visit little coverage, basing its headline, as did El Pais, on Adams's call on the Spanish Government to bring all Basque political prisoners back to the Basque Country. The third main Spanish paper, El Mundo, said in its headline that ``Adams accepts the role of spokesperson for the Basque nationalists in the international community''.

That was precisely one of the points that Spanish politicians and late-night Spanish radio talk shows picked on to deride the event. All participants in those talk shows - who are very pretentious people - have been taken completely by surprise by the peace process. Their reaction has been to concentrate on a stubborn defence of their ``firm'' positions on ``democracy'' and Spain. Thus, the fact that Adams takes the Lizarra-Garazi Declaration to Washington is seen as ``foreign interference in our home affairs''. Others preferred to point out that ``Basque autonomy is unique in the world'', and Conservative candidate Carlos Iturgaiz even said he was convinced that Gerry Adams was ``jealous of the degree of self-government in the Basque Country''.

The Socialist Party was not far from that sort of commentary. All of them tried to avoid the core issue: the peace process will imply deep changes in the political structure of the Spanish state and present-day Basque Country. Facing up to that reality seems to be rather difficult for some politicians and many Spanish journalists who have risen to the forefront thanks to their belligerent attitude towards ETA, HB and Basque nationalism in general. It would appear that they felt more ``comfortable'' when the situation was characterised by violence.

Adams's visit has left an indelible print, even in those who tried to present it as mere electoral propaganda. Thay know it has a very deep significance at this time, and that it ratifies that this new and exciting situation, although not free from difficulties, has opened real possibilities for a negotiated solution to what they call ``the Basque problem'' and we call a conflict stemming from the denial of the Basque people's right to self-determination.